Spirit Species

Summoning

Spirits can be summoned by the main character or recruited from portals, the tavern, and some events.

Strictly speaking, spirits are a separate category. Even though most of them work a lot like creatures, and the rest work a lot like humanoids, there are subtle differences between them and all the other categories (mainly in "species gene" inheritance behavior).

Spirits summoned by the MC receive genes based on the MC's base (without equipment) magic stat. Their max level gene is always 5 when summoned, while the other genes are distributed randomly. Their starting genes can also be increased through the MC's skill tree "Spirit Genes" upgrades (for Evolution and Creation only, and NOT retroactively) and the Elementalist MC profession.

Normally the MC chooses an element at game start and can only summon spirits of that element. Initially, only Fire, Water, and Grass are available. The other four elements can be unlocked by leveling up a spirit of that element to level 10. An MC of an Elementalist profession can summon spirits of all elements, including the ones not yet unlocked as starters.

Only the basic spirit forms can be summoned, and a summoning typically costs 20 exhaustion. Exceptions thus far are stone (10 exhaustion) and shadow (10 exhaustion, 10 morale).

Summoned spirits are created at medium size, except the stone spirit which is created at small.

Wild spirits have gene generation similar to wild humanoids and creatures, including max level genes, and are recruited the same way as any other character. Their size can also vary - you can even find an enormous stone spirit.

Fusion

Spirits can fuse with any other character (so long as that other character is eligible to fuse at all), except with another spirit. To fuse two spirits together, at least one of them must have a Catalyst genetic trait.

Spirits normally do not pass on any species genes when fusing, but they do pass them on when breeding, making the resulting character impure.

Evolution

Spirits have an evolution system similar, yet superior, to that of Druid's seedlings.

Any spirit still eligible for evolution will have an Evolving trait which doubles its experience gain, an effect that can be multiplied with other experience-increasing genetic traits.

A spirit needs to be at its max level in order to evolve. Evolving always resets the stats and level of the spirit. Permanent consumable use count also resets, but the genes added by SoulReaper's special consumable do not. Genes and genetic traits are kept.

All base species spirits with max level still below 20 can be reshaped, increasing their max level gene by 3 and randomly increasing other genes by a total of 2 (the in-game description is incorrect here, it is possible for only ONE gene to increase, but it will increase by 2 in this case). Special traits are kept when reshaping.

All base species spirits and some non-base species spirits can also be further evolved into other species. Spirits keep some skills of previous species when evolving, but special traits are changed when changing species, including the Adapted trait which is lost, while the effect of adaptation remains. Evolution into mount species is accompanied by one tier of size increase.

Unlike with seedlings, you can choose level type and a learned skill upon a species-changing evolution (including evolution into humanoid base species).

Thus far, all the evolution-eligible forms are creatures (non-humanoids) and spirits, though some of the final forms are humanoids, and some are no longer spirits (so far all the base species and the ring beast).